The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent federal agency in Washington, D.C., founded in 1934, responsible for preserving and providing public access to U.S. government records. NARA’s holdings include some 13.5 billion documents, 40 million photographs, 10 million maps, and 835 terabytes of electronic records. Its collection includes the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, slave ship manifests, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, the Nineteenth Amendment, and Japanese surrender documents from World War II.
NARA also manages records management policies for U.S. federal agencies and oversees 15 presidential libraries and museums, 15 regional records centers, and the National Archives Museum.